It may simply be that Bahrain, one of the newest tracks on the calendar, has enough room to accommodate the McLaren trucks even if they are parked at the far end of the pit lane.

Or perhaps the other teams are unhappy that McLaren’s promotion up the pit lane does not reflect the punishment they received last year.

Shaikh Salman bin Isa Al Khalifa, chief operating officer said: “We understand that it is in line with the rules and regulations of the sport for McLaren, which scored no points in the 2007 constructors?óÔé¼Ôäó championship, to take the final set of garages.” The circuit apologised to McLaren fans attending the race who would now not be able to see their team’s pit, but said the change was “force majeure”.

Either way, the move could have a bearing to play on the race weekend as McLaren’s drivers will have a straighter exit from their pit box, and therefore a potentially slightly quicker one. It could also be useful for them in qualifying.

That is true. Pit lane placement is supposed to be the responsibility of the FIA, as it is a sporting matter. It is also interesting that a circuit organiser should take it upon itself to correct the injustice without appearing to reference the FIA or the FOM’s people first, only the rules. This is dangerous territory for organisers – I wonder if bin Isa Al Khalifa is aware of the possible consequences for his race of annoying the powers-that-be.

Alex – I dropped a big hint earlier towards that news story – as it is a story with photos it is not up to us to really go into this especially since there is an outstanding apparent trial/case raised by mr mosley towards a news international employee – never read that it was dropped?
but as we have become used to certain dictatorial statements/regulations from the fia/F1 area we should never really be surprised by what happens in life – it will be interesting to see what the new race organisers think of what happens

thing is that some places i read that this last garage will be for mclaren for the rest of the season, some places it seems it will be for bahrain.. is it just for now, or will we have to see race by race on garage position for mclaren?

Having being pointed in the direction the Concorde Agreement by a very clever fellow it seems it’s actually that the FIA set the critera, and FOM get the promoter to do it. So it’s right that FOM told the track authorities.

Sure Toncho – by ‘least favourable’ I meant that they usually have the least available space for storing equipment and parking transporters and the like. But as I said at Bahrain with it being one of the newest tracks space may not be a problem. In which case we may see the same at Shanghai (which is gigantic) and other new venues.